NYC Attorney Found Guilty For Role In Illegal Flipping, Foreclosure Rescue Scam; Acted As Title Agent; Accused Of Keeping Lenders In The Dark

In Brooklyn, New York, the New York Law Journal reports:

• The bogus world of a Brooklyn, N.Y., attorney who built a profitable business on title insurance while earning high fees on real estate closings came crashing down on Friday as a federal jury convicted him in a subprime mortgage scam. Alexander M. Kaplan, 34, of Lerner & Kaplan, sat stoically at the defense table while a jury of 10 women and two men pronounced him guilty on all 18 counts in an indictment charging him with conspiracy and bank, mail and wire fraud.

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• Kaplan's role, they proved, was to keep lenders in the dark by representing the bank, the buyer and the seller in transactions where mortgage brokers, particularly lead actor Alexander Lipkin, would use the identities of innocent straw buyers to obtain huge loans on properties. Sometimes, they would flip the properties within weeks using even more phony documents.

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• "He [engaged in a massive fraud] by telling lies to banks over and over again. He lied about who the real purchasers were and he lied about the amount of money he disbursed from the loan proceeds," Weitzman said. "His lies were all intended to protect his criminal partners and to make sure the real estate transactions looked legitimate."

For more, see N.Y. Attorney Convicted of Mortgage Fraud.

For the indictment, see U.S. v. Kaplan, et al.